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8:56am October 25, 2013
whyaremyfishturningpink asked: is it ableist to call an oppressive person an 'idiot savant'? a woman in a feminist group i'm in has done this and i didn't get it, so i was just like 'idiot savant?'. someone linked me the wiki article for savant syndrome and said 'it's ironic, obviously' - but i know what savant syndrome is. :/

goldenheartedrose:

It is. The term literally refers to people who are intellectually disabled but who have some sort of gift or talent for one thing. Here is the background on the word idiot itself and why the term has ableist roots : http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/11/ableist-word-profile-idiot/

And basically, if you’re calling someone a name like that and it’s meant to insult? It’s ableist. When a person reclaims a word, especially a slur, they do so in a way that paints the word in a more positive light, like how some feminists reclaim the word “slut” or how some DD/ID people call themselves the r word because that is who they are and it isn’t something to be proud of. But people outside that group cannot use that word. Especially to denigrate someone.

Idiot-savant isn’t just used on people with intellectual disabilities.  The psychiatrist who diagnosed me said I had ‘idiot-savant qualities’ or something of the like.  It’s just an old-fashioned term for savant in general, and this psychiatrist was trained in the fifties.